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Angry Dan's Column

Racial Profiling- Part 2 and The Big Guns of NATO

by Daniel Strohl

In its 21. November issue, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that two
of
France's liberal papers, Le Monde and Liberation, were
raising a ruckus
over statements made by Emile Papiernik, a French obstetrician who said
there is a one week difference between the time it takes blacks and
Caucasians to reach term in a pregnancy, and the two races should thus
be treated differently to have healthy deliveries.

I don't claim to know whether Papiernik is right or not. That's not the
issue here. Rather, the reasoning for Elle magazine questioning if
Papiernik is racist is the issue here.

As I stated in the column about racial profiling, there are differences
between people which are race-related; this just happens to be another
one of them. All men and women are not created equal.

But that is not to deny rights to any men or women based on physical
inequalities. If there is indeed a difference in the reproductive
systems of blacks and whites, we do not deny one or the other health
care because of that difference. Yet we also do not ignore the
possibility of such a fact because we are either afraid of telling
blacks they are not physically equal to whites (or vice versa) or are
afraid of being politically incorrect by saying so.

The new German government brought in Green party member Joschka Fischer
as foreign minister, who, as reported by the Los Angeles Times,
suggested that NATO relinquish its "first-strike" right to nuclear
weapons use. Washington then criticizes him for this. But Washington
(and more specifically, President Clinton) is facing similar suggestions
from Senator Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), who wil get my vote should he decide
to run for president in 2000.

Are we, as a nation and as a superpower, so attached to these phallic
symbols of masculine power from the past that we cannot give them up?
What reasons are there for keeping such an asinine arsenal? India and
Pakistan? Aliens? Huge asteroids?

Nope, it's prestige and ego that make NATO and the United States keep
their fingers over the buttons and it quite frankly scares me that we
have people in these positions who are using nuclear weapons as their
psychological safety blanket/viagra.